A poem is a special piece of text written by a poet and that has an artistic value. For example, poems often have particular forms and conventions to suggest alternative meanings in the words, or to evoke emotional or intellectual responses, for example. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony, and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor, simile, and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images, e.g., a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived.
Poems are used in all cultures to deliver a message from the poet to the audience in all types of subjects such as love, praise, lament, and wisdom. Some forms of poetry are specific to particular cultures and genres, responding to the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. For example, Arabic language, in general, and traditional Arabic poetry, in particular, is of a central importance to Arabic culture. Traditional Arabic poetry is the earliest form of Arabic literature and dates from the 6th century. In particular, traditional Arabic poetry is a major source for classical Arabic language in both grammar and vocabulary, and provides a reliable historical record of the political and cultural life of the time.
Therefore, there is a great interest in obtaining and preserving traditional Arabic poetry. The World Wide Web is a pool of human knowledge and the exact amount of traditional Arabic poetry in the World Wide Web is currently unknown. There are various search engines on the World Wide Web that search for images, books, articles, patents, etc. However, these search engines are very limited in their ability to search for traditional Arabic poetry. Therefore, there is a great interest in a method for automatically identifying traditional Arabic poems in text.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.